All posts by Louis Fowler

Comedy

To Die For (1995)

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Director Gus Van Sant was on the top of the film world in the 1990s, with the semi-wistful Good Will Hunting heralding a true rags-to-riches story. Then, the 1998 shot-for-shot/pretension-to-pretension remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho barreled its way though the floppish door, with its brain-numbing thunderclouds, bleating sheep and other l’artiste touches.

So, yeah, I didn’t like the lousy remake.

But I was pretty much in love with Van Sant’s early work, especially To Die For. I saw it opening night in 1995, mostly because I was hoping to score some time with a private school girl I was very smitten with. Of course, she stood me up — I was a 15-year-old jerk who invited girls to Van Sant movies because I liked My Own Private Idaho and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. (To be fair, I think my Film Threat subscription had more to do with my fandom.)

Even sitting alone in the movie theater, I recall really liking the movie. Why wouldn’t I? Not only was it Van Sant’s new flick, but I also liked the Buck Henry script and, even more, I was entranced with the style of tabloid journalism that started with O.J. Simpson, Tonya Harding and Lorena Bobbitt. (Boy, no wonder I was often alone at the movies. *tear*)

In the black comedy, we meet the über-perky Suzanne Stone (the únter-perky Nicole Kidman). She is obsessed with being a “famous” television journalist. Told in flashback form, her life plays out like a John Waters movie with an L.A. snarky edge.

Suzanne believes the self-empowerment mantras about how television is the one great provider — one that doesn’t mesh with her new husband, Larry (Matt Dillon). Over the year, she becomes consumed with making it big, sans Larry. Soon, she finds a trio of white-trash true believers (including a young Joaquin Phoenix) in her cause, and she creates a teen cult of prepubescent murderers.

Being the near-spiritual dry run to Alexander Payne’s Election, To Die For is revelatory for the sleazy ticks and upselling tricks that now seem commonplace with reality TV becoming the status quo. Although things were different on 1995, To Die For is still a prescient movie. That being said, the one actor who holds it together is Phoenix, with Kidman and Dillion being too cartoonishly evil and dumb, respectively. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Kitchen Sink

Over the Edge (1979)

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WTF

I am very fearful of today’s punk youths, mostly because they will strangle me with their tight jeans, swollen lip rings and stylishly tousled hair, taking me down without a moment of regret or misunderstood bloodshed. As a matter of fact, their rakish behavior makes one yearn for the semi-tuff kids in 1979’s well-acted, oversexed and non-complex teen drama, Over the Edge.

Besides tucking their shirttails, smoking in designated areas, and knowing the proper word for “urination,” the lower-level, white-trash kids of Edge take down the entire high school system with only some bottle rockets, some dirt bikes and, of course, total pubescent angst.

As the title crawl tells — against some serious power-chord action, natch — kids under 15 are horrible miscreants and this primo story is based on this nonexistent fact. We’re introduced to the suburb of New Grenada and their unofficial teen leader, Richie (Matt Dillon), and his buddy, Carl (Michael Kramer).

They and their friends brag about small-time vandalism, attempted date rapes and other minor crimes, not to mention going to see Kiss in their Dynasty disco era (wowza!) at the well-to-do youth center. For the most part, for youth of the 1970s, they’re pretty civil, a little douchey and most vaguely docile.

But when the community center is temporarily closed by some rootin’-tootin’ Texas land developers, do Richie and the gang try to save it by learning breakdancing? No, they go and tear apart a police car. Eventually, they come across a gun and things really get bad when Richie is shot by the cops. So, of course, Carl and his friends come together to take down not only the cops, but also their parents, teachers and teacher’s pets — the whole damn system, man!

Like The Warriors or Rock ’n’ Roll High School,  Over the Edge is an antisocial wish-fulfillment fantasy directed by Jonathan Kaplan, one of Roger Corman’s enfants terribles. With the total power of hard rock, hard times and hard crime, Kaplan does a commendable job here, with most kids tired of the Afterschool Special themes normally crammed down their throats.

The scenes of Greeley, Colorado — a hop, skip and jump from my former home, Fort Collins — and other nearby locales are pretty staid with washed-out suburban colors, but it beats, say, Los Angeles and other California dreams. Even better, the soundtrack featuring the Ramones, Cheap Trick and early Van Halen — I want my ’70s stereophonic headphones now! Turn it up, man!

Over the Edge is a late ’70s picture of classic teen alienation and vintage youth rebellion, with the teenagers waving their stolen shotguns in a true celebration of fist-pumping uprising and personal dirtball freedom.

So take a swig of this 50/50 as I blow up this car … but, please don’t do any of this if my parents are home! *gulp* —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Documentary

The Weird World of Blowfly (2010)

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When Sam & Dave, the classic ’60s soul group, performed their signature hit, “Soul Man,” I wonder how they felt about the Blowfly parody “Hole Man” and if they were proud about it. What about the artists whose original tunes inspired “Y.M.C.(G.)A.(Y.)” or “Shittin’ on the Dock of the Bay”?

Because I definitely would be proud of it … even though I’d sheepishly look down at my feet in total shame and absolute guilt.

I learned of those songs when I discovered Blowfly. When I was a somewhat nerdy, yet eclectic teenager, I was on way to a school marching band competition. Somewhere in the middle of rural Oklahoma, the bus made a roadside stop for bathroom breaks and caffeinated drinks. 

I noticed a rack of outré music journals, cult movie zines and, of course, thoroughly profane Mexican nudie mags. All I had was $20 for lunch, but I bought $19 worth of the strange magazines and a liter of Diet Dr Pepper with the change. Oh, yeah!

The music magazine — sorry, I can’t remember the name — had articles about Doug Sahm, Lou Reed and, more importantly, Blowfly (aka Clarence Reid). Reading, learning and wanting to know more about the nastiest rapper, I was heterosexually enamored.

Since then, I’ve encounter him and his music in the most prurient of places — such as a dying record store in San Antonio, a flea market in New York City or a beer-stained trash can in Fort Collins, Colorado, to be sure — all leading to the 2010 film The Weird World of Blowfly.

Although Blowfly died in 2016, this documentary — a cock-umentary, if you will — finds him in the middle of his ill-advised comeback tour. With his history of party records in tow and the help of manager Tom Bowker, he’s trying to make a comeback, but, at 70, it’s harder than it sounds.

Sadly, he’s playing to lackluster crowds in small clubs and, worse, the worst crowds somewhere in Europe. Through the film, we find out that his royalties are gone, he needs surgery on his leg, and, most of all, people have been flatulent on his backstage pizza. 

A demented genius, a warped personality and a hyper-sexed fuck demon: This is the Blowfly persona. Yet we instead finding him reading the Bible with his aged mother, goofing around with Bowker’s pre-teen daughter and having a midnight snack of McDonald’s hash browns with ample amounts of ketchup and maple syrup.

I never knew about the two conflicting sides of this man, but talking heads like Ice-T, Chuck D and other performers pay tribute, making sure he stayed a dirty secret in your dad’s party records. To be fair, the greatest tribute comes from Bowker when a slick hipster decries Blowfly, upon which the manager truly castigates, denigrates and dominates the hipster in his own personal hell.

Whether you’ve been taken by “Hole Man” or another one of Blowfly’s infamous bits of wordplay surrounding comically slick crevices, gaping love holes and other places to stick your wanton meat stick, The Weird World of Blowfly is the perfect condom to the real-life cultish career. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Horror

Cell (2016)

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Last week — at least in my neck of the woods — a massive cellular phone outage with AT&T made things go reasonably kaput coast to coast. Although my phone was on vibrate while I was quietly working, it apparently rocked the entire country, leaving those in the digital age in the Stone Age for around 12 hours.

However, AT&T gave rebates and other tokens of gratitude for their error, so I thank you.

But what was really weird was I had just watched the low-key Stephen King adaption of Cell, about a cellular signal that turns people into mindless zombies. And that’s without the family and friends plan.

In the somewhat-busy Boston airport terminal, an outbreak occurs, sending people with cellphones on a murderous rampage. Graphic novel artist Clay (a sleepy John Cusack) and train conductor Tom (a sleepy Samuel L. Jackson) find their world turning into post-apocalyptic shit in the aftermath.

As Clay and Tom come upon survivors and fight the undead hordes, they surmise that a “hive mind” is getting them to congregate, kind of like a buzzing signal reminiscent of the 2000s internet. Even worse, in that very Stephen King way, a dream demon from Clay’s sketches tries to get them to a diabolical cell tower.

Of course they are.

While I truly liked the violent airport beginning, the movie proceeds to do nothing with the promise of the premise, devolving into a bunch of badly drawn stereotypes with no way to rationally end … except for the walking zombies, demonic possession and, I guess, bad service coverage. 

With very nominal director Tod Williams (Paranormal Activity 2) at the supposed helm, both Cusack and Jackson sleepwalk though most of their passive screen time. To be fair, they are the better parts of this movie, as everyone is pretty terrible.

In the end, Cell is the forgettable adaptation of a dropped call, with none of the wasted intrigue. Hang up! —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Kitchen Sink

The Iron Claw (2023)

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WTF

When I was a kid and didn’t know any better, I was enthralled with Texas-area, Texas-born wrestlers the Von Erichs and their contribution to the (fake) sport of pro wrestling. Back in the day, you could actually believe in their superheroic leaps and bounds, no matter how trashily presented.

In our small town in Blooming Grove, my father would buy The Dallas Morning News on Sundays, when the sports section had posters on the last page, giving us prime opportunities for experiencing the Saturday night fights, all without pay-per-view. To hell with the WWF!

I had switched to watching Saturday Night Live and its comical ephemera around ’86 or ’87, around the time the brawny Von Erich brothers had some “trouble” in the extreme sense of the word. They and, for the most part, wrestling became a Lone Star-sized blip on the cathode tube, never to be seen again.

Now, some 40 years later, The Iron Claw brings those memories flooding back.

The biopic sets us sometime in the early 1980s, with the thudding boom of the small-time wrestling Von Erich family. The depressive Kevin (a very buff Zac Efron) leads his equally fit brothers to total takedown victories in the ring — only for all it to be taken by cruel fate, which comes for each of them in the saddest way possible.

Besides sparring with the family’s own demons, their dad is former wrester/then-current WCCW owner Fritz (Holt McCallany). Emotionally abusive, he grinds his sons into the dirt, saying their shortcomings are for their “own good.”

While I knew about the Von Erichs’ mythical stories when their dynasty ruled, I wasn’t privy to much of what’s detailed in the film. From drunken amputations to shame-based suicides, it’s a truly sad story that director Sean Durkin peacefully delivers.

As shown in the epilogue, Kevin was able to break through and turn his life around; for that, I am happier. While some people need to know the whole story, warts and all, The Iron Claw does the legend justice. Even better, I don’t need to watch wrestling again to know it. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.